Tales of a Hero
by PuppetMasterPuppet
Summary: Answering the lifelong question - Why does Alfred want to be the Hero? Just some silly little stories.
1. Tell Me a Story

A hand ran through his dirty blond locks. A voice, unusually soft and gentle, rang in his ears. The words were jumbled, but it was perfectly clear that he was being sang to. The melodic tune always made him smile.

Alfred couldn't concentrate while his head was being pet; a trait he had picked up from his older brother. He smiled and leaned into the touch, earning a chuckle from the man he was laying on.

"You should be asleep already, you twit." Arthur stopped petting the boy's head, hearing a whimper from the boy on his lap. "I've been trying to sing you to sleep for half an hour, now." The brit huffed and laid down next to the younger nation.

"Are you gonna tell me a story, Iggy?" Alfred giggled as the lights were shut off and his brother's arms wrapped around him. There was a kiss pressed to his forehead.

"Yeah, yeah. What should it be about this time? Cowboys and indians?"

He shook his head

"What about...going to the moon?"

Another shake.

"I want to hear the one about the knight!"

Arthur sighed. "Again? Don't you want to hear about something more exciting?"

Alfred shook his head and snuggled into the older boy's chest. "Please, Iggy? Pretty please?" That was a plea the Brit couldn't ignore. They wrapped themselves in blankets and closed their eyes. Arthur continued to pet the American's head as he talked.

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess named--"

"I want her name to be Arthur." The younger boy chripped happily. Arthur sighed and rolled his eyes.

"But that's a boy's name, twit. There's no way anybody would name a princess Ar--"

"Then let's name her Iggy!" Arthur knew he wasn't going to win this fight. Alfred smiled as his brother continued.

"Princess Iggy was the ruler of a very large kingdom. But there was nobody else, just the Princess and the people she ruled over. So, one day, a letter sat on the Princess' pillow, inviting her to a meeting for all the rulers of all the kingdoms in the world. The Princess never got along with anybody else, so she never went.

But the meeting was very important. Because she didn't go, the other kingdoms thought that her kingdom didn't like theirs. They thought her armies were going to try and attack them. All the other kingdoms of the world had another meeting and decided that they were going to capture the Princess and take over her kingdom."

Alfred bit his lip and stared through the dark, searching for his brother's eyes. "Why didn't they like her, Iggy?" His voice was so soft and innocent.

Arthur sighed, holding the American closer to his chest. "Nobody can like everybody. Sometimes, everybody just hates one certain person. You'll learn when you grow older." Alfred swore he heard something wrong in the way Arthur spoke.

"As I was saying, men from all over the world took over the Princess' kingdom and the Princess was taken to a far away land. The kingdoms kept her in a high tower on a distant island where nobody would find her.

But one day, a boy, let's call him--"

"Alfred!" Arthur knew that the younger nation would suggest he use his name.

"--Alfred, lived on the island and he was going on an adventure. When he walked by the tower, he thought he heard crying. So, Alfred broke down the tower door and climbed step after step until he came to a small black door that led to the source of the crying noises. He kicked down the black door only to find Princess...Princess..." The tired Brit lost his train of thought and closed his eyes.

"Iggy! Princess Iggy!" Alffred shouted, waking Arthur from his short nap and continuing the story.

"Yes, the Princess was lying in her bed, crying. When Alfred asked her what was wrong, she told him that because she wasn't a princess anymore, she was alone and nobody cared about her. Alfred said that he would take care of her and he helped her get out of the tall tower.

Alfred told Iggy that even if she wasn't a princess anymore, he still cared about her. They lived there together and Alfred and Iggy became the king and queen of their own little island." Arthur, content with his half-assed story, closed his eyes and almost instantly fell asleep. He quietly snored, his lips pressed against the younger boy's head.

"Are you asleep?" Alfred whispered softly, poking the older nation in the cheek. "I'll take that as a 'yes'." The boy sighed, holding onto the man next to him.

"When you're in trouble, Iggy, I'll be your hero. I'll be just like the Alfred in the story. And I'll save you from everybody else, and maybe you'll be able to smile like you did when you first saw me. You think we could ever be like them, Iggy? You think we could live together forever?"

Alfred kissed his older brother on the cheek and relaxed against his chest.

"I'll be your hero, Iggy. I'll protect you forever." With that, America closed his eyes, not knowing that a few years from then, Arthur would be kneeling in front of him with a gun in his hands and tears in his eyes.


	2. I Learned it From the French

Alfred supported his head on his hands, leaning on the kitchen counter while Arthur cooked. The Brit was humming a wonderfully catchy tune. The melody had actually gotten Alfred to smile.

"And what did you learn today?" The older nation said, still wrapped in his cooking. He spared a glance backward, smiling at his brother; admiring him.

"I uh...learned that you like wearing frilly aprons when you cook." Alfred laughed loudly, grinning when the older nation turned around. The sandy haired man stuck his tongue out.

"Not quite. I mean about your brother and that frog. And my aprons are most certainly **not** frilly." Arthur took out a few eggs from the basket on the table. Alfred smiled; he couldn't possibly ruin a few cooked eggs. Even Arthur couldn't possibly mess it up.

"Um...Matthew likes to hang out with dirty old perverts?" The American swung his legs back and forth, amused at how they dangled off of the tall chair he was sitting on. "And that I like hanging out with dirty old perverts who can't admit they're dirty old perverts."

From a country away, you could hear a fuse blow in the Brit's household.

"I beg your pardon, but I am no such thing!" Arthur's face was beginning to look a bit like one of Antonio's tomatoes.

The younger boy just laughed and shot a smug grin at his caretaker. "That's not what Francis said. He said that you've been getting worse at hiding things and lately, you've been taking too many trips to the--"

"Alfred. You stop talking like that this instant! I will not stand by and listen to this load of--" His face was as red as it could be and his bushy eyebrows were slanted inward, making him look like an angry little child.

"Iggy, the pan!" Alfred shouted and pointed to the fireplace as whatever poor thing that was in the pan caught on fire. All arguments ceased as smoke filled the room.

"Bloody hell!" The Brit shouted, throwing his pan and the now-flaming eggs almost completely into the fire. Alfred, being a little better at cooking (or was it fire safety) threw the bucket of water they kept near their fireplace over the flames, dousing them immediately.

After the fire was put out, and both nations had calmed down, Arthur grunted an apology for the burnt breakfast.

"Well, if you weren't fooling around, I would have been paying better attention to the food."

Alfred, being used to comments like this, just wrapped his arms around the older man and nuzzled into the rough cloth his vest was made of. Hesitantly, Arthur held back, patting the boy's light blond hair and smiling.

"I guess we need Papa after all, Iggy." Alfred gave, muffled in the fabrics of Arthur's clothes. But the British man still caught the gist of it, angrily ripping the younger nation off of him and glaring down.

"What did you just call that frog?"

At this, Alfred's face paled. He hadn't thought about what he was saying until the mistake was well past made. It wasn't his fault; whenever he went to visit his brother and Francis; he was to be addressed as Papa for very good reasons. At least, he and his brother thought they were good.

"He says that you're the Mama and he's the Papa, so I'm supposed to call him Papa. Since, technically, me and Mattie are your kids and all." Alfred stopped, stared up innocently at his caretaker. "Or…would you rather me call _you_ Papa? Or Daddy, since Francis was pretty intent on keeping his title?"

Matthew had taught him that trick. Whenever Francis was mad at him, when he called him Papa and played innocent, they had always gone in a completely different direction with whatever was at hand. If Arthur was half the pervert Papa Francis had made him out to be, he would be out of trouble; hook, line, and sinker.

Both blonds stared at each other; Alfred using his charm and innocent blue eyes to bore through his brother's nervous green ones, digging up a very deep blush. He was squirming in his seat, looking for the right words. One second, his mouth would open to shout an insult or two, the next, it would snap shut like a fly trap, catching the words before they escaped and killing them quickly.

Alfred was so excited over his new discovery, that he dared to tread a little further, "Iggy, what's wrong? If you really don't like Mama, then I'm sure Papa Francis would let me call you Daddy. Or, is there something wrong with that too, _Daddy_?"

That was it. Being careful not to look back at his younger brother, Arthur ran out the front door and a took a few steps past the veil of trees, out of sight.

"Was he chatting up with me?" The man asked no one in particular, willing himself to keep his hands at his sides rather than on his belt. that was it. That was the last time he took his younger brothers to see Francis. In fact, Matthew was to come home as soon as Alfred was addressed about his earlier behavior. " If I ever get my hands on that sodding frog again, I'll kill him."

That day, Alfred learned to keep his 'talks' with Papa Francis a secret.

---

**So I know it's been forever and a half since I posted something for any of my stories, and I should be saying sorry, but I've had babysitting and self-given work up the wazoo. So, once my router broke last week, I got to writing and this came out.**

**Yay?**

**Sorry for taking so long; I'll be quicker about things next time around.**

**PuppetMasterPuppet**


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